


twin flame

by rosynosed



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24030919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosynosed/pseuds/rosynosed
Summary: rose still holds onto a note from jimmy stone, the doctor wants to know whyhurt/comfort
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The doctor/ rose tyler
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	twin flame

there was one thing the Doctor was consistently poor at, it was his ability to knock on Rose Tyler’s door.

“Rose Tyler!” he’d barged in, wagging a thin piece of paper, “why were you carrying this...this array of scribbles in your pocket?”  
The page had been notably stained, ink that’d been brushed with water had spilled further down the page, some areas of the white sheet had sort of grayed and folded in on itself.  
“I’d assumed it wasn’t important, and was just going to throw it away, seeing as though you just let it go into the wash but then-” he cut himself off, now dangling the scrap in front of Rose’s eyes, only to then take his index finger and brush it over the opening sentence, “then I saw that it said ‘To Rose Tyler,’ and then I saw it was written in a notably human male’s handwriting! So I thought- deduced, really, because let’s be honest, I’m brilliant, that it held some sort of sentimental value to you! So here you go, Ms. Tyler!”

He handed her the paper with a bow, as if he had just committed some noble deed when, in harsh reality, he was just getting his favorite suit out of the wash and happened to be nosy in the process. 

Rose, however, found the act anything but reputable, she snatched the paper from his hand, causing its corner to tear a bit, and immediately shoved it into the drawer next to her bed. Red spilling into her cheeks as her brows furrowed.

“Yes, thank you!” the words were fast, with an exaggerated sincerity used to mask the disquiet that nibbled at the back of her throat.

The Doctor then pranced onto the edge of her bed, brown wild eyes scanning her features as if it was his first time looking at her. He tried to meet her gaze but it had been focused elsewhere, the wall opposite of his gaze. Like a dog itching for a good pet, he scooted closer to her, a grin poking at his cheeks.

“So was I right?” he inquired, staring at the blonde imploringly, awaiting his approval.

“About?” she finally fixed her eyes onto him, but they were a bit unfocused.

“That note having sentiment!”

She couldn’t help it, a smile tugged at her lips as she stared at the approval seeking alien.

“Yes, I s’ppose it has sentiment.”

He jumped from her bed , and spun on his left foot before turning to stare at the girl again. Manically beaming with glaring pride before sitting back at the edge of her bed, “I knew it!”

He then began to tug at her comforter, a scintillating pink that had cast a bit of a rosy tint onto the rest of the room.

“So?” he asked.

One of her brows dipped, “So , what?”

“What’s the sentimentality? Never heard a peep about a ‘Jimmy Stone’ before. Come to think of it, you haven’t told me much about your life, outside of your father and some of those men your mum’s run through.” 

She shrugged, slumping back into her headboard and rolling her head over her shoulders, “Guess I never felt a need. I mean you’ve touched every star in the universe, surely the mundane twenty years of a shop-girl from the streets of London wouldn’t pique your interest. Anything I could tell you just feels sort of useless, yeah?”

He’d cocked his head at her like she’d grown a second head, which was maybe a bad analogy because he’d definitely seen that at one point or another, “That’s ridiculous! Of course I want to know your life! We live together, I think I deserve to know who’s notes you're carrying around like a lucky charm.”

The words were half envious and half sincere curiosity, which were met with a set of awkwardly parted lips from his companion.

“Just didn’t think you cared about that kinda stuff ‘s all.”

“Course I do. Now who is Jimmy Stone?” He said his last name with an exaggerated emphasis on the “O”. 

She reached back into the drawer and pulled out the paper, her eyes watered a bit as she finally got a good look at how damaged it had become upon going through the wash, “Just some bloke I went out with when I was younger.”

“Why do you carry his note?”

She shrugged again, and scanned over the handwriting, its blurriness amplified by the tears she was fighting to keep at bay. She stroked it a bit, reading over each line and doing what she could to make out the words. To most they’d be illegible, but because each phrase carved into her memory. She smiled a bit, the more she read.

“It’s a song, actually. Jimmy was in a band, not a very good one, but a band nonetheless,” she laughed a bit, rubbing her hands across her eyes and taking in a bit of a sniff, “this song was about me.”  
If the Doctor had noticed the emotions that began to spill from Rose, he made no indication of it. 

He frowned, “Well it’s not a very good one, didn’t even get your hair color right. ‘Chocolate hair I’d love to drown in’ can’t be a very good song.”

The smile she returned to him revealed her teeth, she lifted her fingers to the crown of her head and pointed to the patch of brown that bubbled against the platinum, “Box blonde. Dyed it immediately after our split.”

“Oh, right,” the Doctor still told himself that the song was rubbish, “Why’d you start coloring it?”

She laughed, and hid her face sheepishly into her hand, only to pull that hand into her hair and tuck it behind her ear.  
“Felt like I needed a fresh start. Can’t just up n change my face like you! Though after him, boy did I want to.” Her voice faded into something denser as her sentence closed.

“You still keep in touch?”

“Hell no.”

“Then why keep the note?”

She was biting a lip that quivered beneath her pearls, her throat bobbing a bit before she replied.

“It’s..nice I guess. Don’t love him anymore but I did at one point, y’know? I don’t hear a lot of people tellin’ me these kindsa things when we’re out and about. Just kinda a memento that there are people that care about me.”

“Well I tell you things like that all of the time!” The Doctor piped up, lifting himself from the bed and pacing around the room, “why do you need some, washed up singer to tell you that?”

“You don’t really say things like that to me.”

He stopped in his tracks and robotically whipped his head around to look at the girl, who was now cloaking herself in those obscenely magenta blankets .

“Sure I do! Don’t I?” when he was met with no reply he finished his thought, “Well I think ‘em! All the time I’m thinking about how pretty you are, only now you’re pretty with blonde hair! Sure you would’ve been a looker with brown but, personally I think I have the upper grond in comparison to Jimmy. I like your hair. Gets all glowy under the TARDIS light sometimes.”

Her mouth was left ajar from his words, mouthing words without sound, only to be interrupted before any became audible.

“Why not keep something from Mickey?”

Rose was a tongue biter, both in action and figure of speech- and both ways were absolutely maddening to the Doctor.

The physical way, he was rather fond of. It’d meant she had been very impressed with some sort of joke, whether it be his or her own. He wasn’t quite sure she knew she did it, so he was careful to never compliment it- or stare too long when she did, because a part of him feared that if she became aware of her unconscious acts of beauty she’d subdue them. Alternatively, she’d amplify its use- which on a surface level was lovely- ideal even, but there was this flirty edge to it that had he been exposed to it more than he already had..  
The Doctor was a dead man.

Her metaphorical tongue biting was downright frustrating. Rose, unlike himself, was hardly a showy person. Not of her body, not of her vexations, not of her skills. Which often resulted in an onslaught of passive aggressive comments, to which the Doctor would try to expand into a sincere addressal of feelings, but she would always cut him off with a “No, it’s fine.”

It never was, but he knew she’d at least try to put on a convincing act.

In this moment, both of her tongue-biting habits had crossed paths, resulting in a seemingly contemplative Rose. Her tongue was wedged between her teeth, but her furrowed brows and exasperated breath let him know whatever she was going to say would be a watered down version of her unfeigned sentiments.

“Mickey was a nice guy, just tended to show his feelings through actions, y’know? He liked takin’ me to the pub, or buying me some piece of jewelry I’d mentioned I’d liked here or there but he never really took the time to articulate any of it,” she took a deep breath, which was followed by a bit of a laugh, “Come to think of it I don’t think he ever called me pretty, nothin’ like that. Threatened to beat up Jimmy once or twice for me, though, but he never would do that.”

She blinked a bit and looked up at the Doctor, who’s inky eyes were pouring into her own.

“Sorry, must be ramblin’ if I’ve managed to keep you from talkin’” she said, a bit awkwardly.

“Why would he threaten to beat up Jimmy?” The Doctor asked, tossing his reticence away and exchanging it for a voice he held sturdy, to keep it from trembling as the question apprehensively crept from his lips.

“Well he wasn’t all too good of a boyfriend, really. Cute, yeah, but shitty in almost every other facet. Stole some of mum’s money once, convinced me I was too stupid for A-levels, left that sucker on me.”  
She lifted her shirt a bit, revealing a bit of skin that The Doctor’s eyes had been a strange to. In any other circumstance, he’d be short of breath from the thought of the girl offering more of herself to him, but now his breathing tightened for other reasons.  
A rim of carmine circled around her, it was no bigger than a quarter, but had probably been larger in its younger days.  
Nonchalantly, she lifted her shirt back down and crossed her legs, “Opposite of Mickey, actions would tell you he hated me, but his words-” she began rubbing her hip, “I still wonder if he sings it sometimes, or at the very least hums it. I like to think that he does, that its still my lips he screams for when he's lost himself in booze, its stupid, I don’t love him- I don’t. But he’s stuck with me, haunted me, guess that’s my way of wanting to do the same.”

“Rose-”

“It’s stupid, yeah? That I need comfort from some guy who did somethin’ like that to me. But it’s hard, y’know? Travellin’ around and usually only ever hearing that you’re a stupid ape, or that you have inferior biology, or-”

“Rose-”

“And y’know what’s really fucked?” she was crying, and there was no way The Doctor wasn’t seeing it now, “Still more scared of him than I ever will be an alien we meet. I could laugh in the face of a Dalek, but sometimes I dream of him- and I freeze, like a little girl.”

She was sobbing now, a cascade of tears sliding across her cheeks.

He wasn’t sure when he started holding her, but there was no doubt that he was. The two of their bodies were so close that the shadows they cast were unidentifiable as people, figures so conjoined the reflection of them was no more than a hazy form. Her breath wash hot, inflaming his anger even further. In his hands he held the wrath of God, but with all restraint he could muster he stroked the weeping cherub he held. Delicate strokes that he itched to empower, striking them into anyone that had dulled her flame. Oh, how he longed to burn with her, he was on fire for a girl who was burning out. 

He lifted her chin, and channeled his impassioned state into her lips, tugging her hair and forcing his tongue into every inch of Rose’s mouth. He pulled away, and stared at the girl, whose eyes were still dewy- but had taken on a new look of shock.

“Rose Tyler, you are going to throw Mr. Stone’s note- and I am going to give you every goddamn action he failed to. I’ll write you songs twice- no ten times as great as his! And I suppose, now’s a good time as any, to tell you that I love you, Rose Tyler. With every beat of my hearts I am in love with you.”

Their shadows, miraculously, grew even less distinctive as the night progressed.


End file.
